


Burn Me With Fire, Drown Me With Rain

by eternaleponine



Series: The 100 Clexa Reunion [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3711562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa knows that she made the right decision, but it doesn't mean she's ready to give up on Clarke.  She just hopes that Clarke feels the same.</p>
<p>Warning: Contains spoilers through the end of season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Me With Fire, Drown Me With Rain

She told them she wanted to be kept informed about the movements of the Sky People. She let them believe that it was because she was concerned that they would attempt to retaliate after she'd broken the alliance between them. Some would have had her wipe them out once and for all, like she'd expected (hoped? no, not hoped) the Mountain Men would do. They were so few, and the Mountain Men had a fortress. She'd left Clarke standing there, staring after her, telling her (telling her _self_ ) that she'd only done what Clarke would have, saving her people even when it meant leaving the others, the Sky People, behind.

She'd made an agreement, taken the deal that was offered, to save her people. The ones inside, and the warriors who had followed her, _Yes, Heda, we will die for you, for your cause, for our people, for the Sky People, because you ask it,_ but in the end she'd been offered a way out and she'd taken it, even though...

Even though.

She told them she wanted to be kept informed, and she let them believe whatever they wanted, but the truth was that she wanted to know where Clarke was, what she was doing, _how_ she was doing. She wanted to know that she was all right. She wanted to know, or at least believe, that there was hope.

(There wasn't. She knew there wasn't. Not after what she'd done. She'd made a deal, a bargain, her people for Clarke's people, and that was a small price to pay, wasn't it? What were forty-odd lives compared to hundreds, thousands? What was one girl's heart compared to the hearts of all of the families of the warriors whose lives would have been lost in the battle they would have waged? Her people came first, before and above all, including her own wants, needs, desires. Her feelings – and why had she ever let herself feel anything again? – were unimportant. Irrelevant, even. Head over heart. It was the only way.)

Indra had let Lincoln go. She knew, because how else? Who else? Indra didn't know she knew. Publicly, she'd renounced Lincoln, because she'd had to. He'd left them, betrayed her, done what she hadn't, couldn't, would never have been allowed. He'd followed his heart, and it had taken him back to the Sky People, to stand at the side of the one he loved most. Octavia _kom Skaikru_. Her people would probably never accept him, as the _Trikru_ had never really accepted Octavia, not fully, although Indra had tried, but at least they were together. At least they had each other.

She'd renounced him, because he'd broken the deal that she'd made with Mount Weather (even though it was a moot point now) and of course she could not meet with him directly, but when news reached her that Clarke had walked away from her people, had gotten to the gates of Camp Jaha after letting in the outside air and killing all of the Mountain Men – every man, woman, and child – and then turned around and walked away, she knew that it had come to her through him. Who else?

The information sat heavy in her mind, heavier on her heart, pressing and squeezing so that it didn't feel like she could catch a full breath, and she avoided people as much as she could because she knew that if they saw her they would expect her to speak, and she wasn't sure that she could without it coming out a scream. The back of her throat felt raw and her mouth tasted of blood and she was imagining it, had to be imagining it, but it felt like she was drowning.

"I'm going out," she told the one who had risen to take Gustus's place. "You will not follow me."

"Heda..." he started, but she waved away whatever it was that he wanted to say. 

"You will not follow." And then she left, with her sword strapped to her back and her dagger at her hip. She walked, and kept walking, and if anyone called out to her she did not hear them. She didn't know where she was going, and she knew that it was foolish at best to think that she might find Clarke just by striking out in a random direction and hoping...

(Was she hoping? _What_ was she hoping? Even if she somehow found her, what then? She'd made her choice, and even if it had been the right choice, it had burned the bridge she'd been willing to stand on for as long as it took.)

She returned that night with nothing to show for her efforts but aching feet and a growling belly, and she'd done as little as she could to alleviate the discomfort because a part of her (her bruised, battered, stuttering heart) told her that she deserved it. After all, Clarke was almost certainly hurting and hungry, and if she could do nothing else, she could at least suffer along with her. 

(A stupid, childish thought, and she knew it, sentiment at its very worst, but she had to do _something_ because doing nothing felt like giving up, and she didn't give up. She fought. It was what she was born for and raised to and all that she knew. She'd thought once that things could be different, that peace was possible, but no, no, there was no peace here, not for any of them but especially not for her.)

She went out the next day, and the next, and the next, but she found nothing. Of course she found nothing. Maybe there was nothing to find, maybe it was too late, she was too late and the hope that she'd found, the something more, something better that had fallen from the sky (literally) would return to her only in pieces.

Again.

The air was damp with rain that refused to fall, thick, and she choked as she tried to swallow the sob that rose up at the thought, and the name came out a whimper. "Costia."

Because the queen of the Ice Nation had made sure that she knew exactly what she was capable of, had made sure that she saw – saw and could not, could never, unsee – what happened to those who Lexa held dear.

"Costia!" 

There was no one around, no one to hear, so she let herself cry, let her herself rage like she hadn't when it had happened because she couldn't, she had a people to lead and appearances to maintain. She'd locked it all away and told herself that she didn't feel a thing, but now she felt it, felt everything at once and it was too much.

She pulled her sword and struck out against invisible enemies, the blade cutting into the bark of trees that got too close, that took her by surprise as they suddenly appeared in her field of blurred vision, and she screamed and sobbed until she was spent and collapsed on the ground, and thought that maybe she just wouldn't get up. 

But of course that wasn't a choice. She was the commander, and she had to get up. She had to keep fighting. Someday, someone would lean over her and say the words that would release her, but not yet. Not today.

She went back, and slept like the dead, and woke up starving. She ate, and she met with her people and she took up her role again because she had no choice. 

(She had had a choice, for a moment, and she'd made it. Now she had to live with it, and she'd resigned herself to it in the woods, surrounded by the carnage she'd inflicted on the trees, and she knew that she'd been screaming more than one name, but she tried not to think about it, because it did no good, and it would hurt and she had to be done with feeling anything if she was going to do this.)

A day passed, and then another, and she put on a good face and she even made herself smile, but inside she was numb, and numb was okay, numb got her through.

Then word came. The Sky Girl, the one who had stood at Heda's side, had been seen, not nearby but near enough, alone, and they didn't know what she was up to and what did she want them to do? She knew that they thought Clarke had come to spy on them, perhaps to do reconnaissance for a strike against them, revenge for Lexa's betrayal, but she knew better. 

She knew better, because she trusted Clarke. She had betrayed Clarke's trust in her, but never the other way around, and Clarke was _good_ , whatever choices she made and however hard they were for her to bear, she was _good_ and she would understand.

(Wouldn't she? She had to. Didn't she? But no, she didn't _have to_ do anything. Still, Lexa wanted to believe it, even though she knew that it left her open, left her weak, there were some cracks that she couldn't quite seal, no matter how hard to tried, as soon as she heard her name again.)

She left in the early morning, before dawn when everything was still and nearly silent, slipped past the guards and into the darkness, headed in the direction where she had been told that Clarke had been seen. She moved as quickly as she could and still stay quiet, keeping eyes and ears open for any sign of life. 

But it was her nose that led her to the place Clarke had chosen to set up camp, and the smell of damp earth and stale smoke. A campfire gone out in the night (which was dangerous, but then so was leaving a fire burning while one slept, when there was no one to tend it, but then again not having a fire to keep animals off was perhaps the most dangerous of all, and it was impossible to know whether it was recklessness or negligence on Clarke's part that had led to the smoldering embers), located near a stream. 

She made her way to the edge of the small clearing, crouched down and picked up a stick, staying low as she snapped it in half, worried that Clarke would shoot first and ask questions later. But no gun was pulled, even as Clarke jerked awake, wild-eyed, and froze when she saw someone was there. Lexa stayed crouched down and pitched her voice low. "It's okay," she said. "You're safe."

For a second, she thought she saw Clarke relax, but then she tensed again, and Lexa shifted her weight slightly, prepared to stand, to defend herself, but a sword was no good against a bullet at this range, and if Clarke wanted her dead, she was as good as, and she had accepted that the minute she'd stepped outside of the circle of protection that Polis offered her. 

"Lexa."

She nodded, a lowering of her eyes and chin in assent, the slightest movement.

"Or should I say _Heda_?"

The word was like a slap, and Lexa knew it had been meant to be. She took it, accepted it, knew that she deserved it, and worse. She would not try to excuse what she'd done; she'd made the choice she had to make. She'd done the right thing for her people, and if Clarke couldn't see that, couldn't understand... well, maybe she was on a fool's errand, if that was the case, but she thought that Clarke could understand, and would, if she let herself. Look at the choice she had made, the choice she had been _forced_ to make, and she'd gotten her people out alive, hadn't she? They'd both gotten their people out alive, and the only significant casualties were the Mountain Men...

... and themselves.

"You have never called me that," Lexa said, keeping her voice steady. "I would rather that you didn't start."

"Why are you here?" An accusation more than a question, but Clarke sounded so tired, like she couldn't even summon the anger that Lexa had already accepted was her due.

_Be careful,_ she told herself. _One wrong word, and this ends, shattered beyond repair._ "I am here because you are," she said finally. "I am here because this is where I need to be."

Clarke just looked at her, not moving, not saying a word, barely breathing or blinking from what Lexa could see. She looked tired, worn, but uninjured, and that, at least, was a relief. Lexa held up her hands to show they were empty, then slowly reached for the pack she'd slung across her back, twisting it to the front. "I brought food," she said. "I thought you might be hungry."

"I'm fine," Clarke said, an automatic response, like a reflex, but Lexa saw the lie in her eyes. 

"I'll just leave it here," Lexa said, removing a wrapped bundle from her pack and setting it down. "I'll leave it and go." 

Clarke didn't say anything, so Lexa did as she said she would, standing and walking away... but not far. She couldn't see Clarke from where she was, but she was close enough that she would see, or at least hear, anything else that approached (she hoped), and defend her if it came to that.

No one came. A few times Lexa thought of turning around, going back, but she stayed where she was, afraid that if she left, as soon as she left, something would happen – an attack from an animal, or another clan (with the Mountain Men gone, there was no common enemy to band together against, and while the alliance still held, there was grumbling undercurrents, like shifting fault lines, and she knew it was only a matter of time before something shifted, something broke), or even one of her own – and she couldn't let that happen.

There was also the possibility that if she left, Clarke would pick up and move, and she wouldn't be able to find her again. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, but...

But.

Darkness began to fall. Sunset streaked the horizon, and Lexa's stomach growled and she realized that she hadn't eaten. She hadn't given all of her food away to Clarke – she wasn't stupid – but she'd been so caught up in watching over her that she'd forgotten to watch over herself.

She smelled the smoke as Clarke started a fire – the wood was too green to burn well, but what did a girl who fell from the sky know about that? – and heard her going down to the stream to get water. She could see a flash of bright hair from where she had hidden herself, and she risked exposure just a little to get a glimpse at what she was doing.

Nothing. She was just standing there, looking around. "Lexa," she said, not shouting but her voice pitched to carry. "I know you're still out there. It's getting dark." She wasn't looking in Lexa's direction, so she hadn't actually spotted her. But she knew. "You might as well come share the fire."

A crack. An opening. A glimmer of hope. 

Lexa slid out of her hiding place and approached the stream, standing exactly opposite Clarke, and waited. When she nodded, Lexa crossed it, and followed her back to her camp. She stayed on the opposite side of the fire, giving her space, room to move, room to breathe. 

Her stomach growled again, and she pulled out the food she'd kept in reserve, offering half of it to Clarke, but she shook her head, showed her that she still had some of what she'd been given left. So Lexa ate, keeping some for the next morning. What would happen after that, she didn't know, but she would figure it out when the time came. Right now, she just had to make it through the night.

She felt Clarke's eyes on her, watching her, studying, and she tried to stay relaxed. She waited for questions to come. She waited for Clarke to ask why she'd done what she'd done, demand an explanation for how she could be so cold. But the questions didn't come, and after a while she started to think maybe they never would. Maybe Clarke didn't need an explanation, because maybe she understood. 

Lexa wished she didn't. She wished she could have spared her somehow, but in the end, she believed that Clarke had made the only choice that would have saved her people. If they'd fought, but left even one of the Mountain Men alive, it never would have ended for any of them. She was sure of that.

"I'll take first watch," she said, and Clarke nodded, but it was a long time before she went to sleep, and then it was fitfully, restlessly, plagued by nightmares she might never know in detail, but the gist of which Lexa knew all too well lately, though she would never admit it to anyone. 

She got up, moved around the fire, sat back down and laid her hand on Clarke's head, stroking her hair with one hand even as the other rested on the hilt of her sword. She felt her settle, saw her features ease, and she smiled, just a little, to herself.

When Clarke woke, it was in the darkest part of the night. She didn't move for a moment, but Lexa could feel the tension all through her as she made sense of her surroundings, silently assessing for threats. She was a survivor, and she'd quickly become accustomed to being on her own. Lexa stayed still, waiting for her to process it all, then shifted slightly to give her space to sit up. 

"You can sleep now," Clarke said.

Lexa obediently laid down, leaving her dagger in easy reach but shifting her sword so that if it came to it, Clarke could grab it and use it. Not that she had any training in it, but the basics were easy enough – stick the pointy end into the thing attacking you. 

Yes, there was a chance that Clarke would choose to use it against her, but she didn't think it was a significant one. She was far more likely to use her gun. But Lexa trusted her, even now, so she closed her eyes and let sleep – dark and bottomless and blessedly dreamless – drag her down.

She woke to Clarke's hand on her shoulder, nudging her awake as the horizon only just started to lighten. She moved quickly and quietly, sitting up and looking around. She felt the hilt of her sword pressed into her hands and she took it, and glanced over to see that Clarke had her gun out. She listened, looked, but there was nothing to see or hear, and after a few minutes, she let out a breath and shook her head. "Are you sure there's something out there?"

Clarke didn't look at her, just shook her head. "I thought there was."

"It could be it went away," Lexa said. Or it could be that Clarke imagined it. Spending days (weeks now) on your own, day and night in a world that you didn't understand and that was hostile at best... it had to wear on a person. The possibility of Clarke seeing or hearing things that weren't actually there was a real one, but better safe than sorry.

"Sorry I woke you for nothing."

Lexa shrugged. "I slept enough." It was a lie, but she was used to not sleeping by now. Night had become the enemy, and she waged more battles in her sleep than she ever did waking, although not this time, and it was probably wrong to attribute that to Clarke's presence, but part of her wanted to, desperately clinging to the idea that it meant something.

None of this meant anything. 

(Did it? The line between reality and wishful thinking felt incredibly blurry right now, and not just because of the hour, and the haze that hovered around them, drifting from the surface of the stream.)

"We might as well eat," Lexa said, reaching for her pack, and Clarke did the same. Lexa watched her out of the corner of her eye, and once or twice she caught Clarke looking back, and then they both looked away like they were embarrassed, because it wasn't the look of an enemy assessing a threat... at least not for Lexa, and she didn't think it was for Clarke either, but again, that could just be her mind playing tricks on her, seeing what she wanted to see instead of what was there.

As the silence stretched, Lexa could feel something building in the air between them. The air was charged, like the feeling of a storm rolling in before it actually broke. The tension was palpable, but Clarke said nothing and she didn't know what to say, because she didn't know what Clarke was not asking.

It stretched so long that it made Lexa itch, made her skin crawl, and for a moment she thought about getting up and walking away, even if only to the stream, just to escape it. But she got the feeling that if she turned her back on Clarke again, that would be it. The end, and no coming back from it this time. This was a test, and she was going to pass it this time, because she'd failed, even as she'd succeeded. 

"I made my choice with my head, Clarke," she finally said, when she couldn't stand it anymore. "Not my heart. You, of all people, should understand."

Clarke looked at her finally, and it pinned her to the tree that she leaned against, fixed her there, and there was no escaping. "You said that already." Then she looked away, and for a second Lexa was relieved, because at least the air wasn't being squeezed out of her lungs by the weight of Clarke's gaze on her. But her next words robbed her of breath completely, like when fire sucks all of the air from a room, consumes it and leaves behind nothing but ash. "What if you hadn't?"

Lexa blinked, and her mouth was probably hanging open, and she forced herself to close it. She shook her head. "I did."

"I know," Clarke said, and Lexa was pinned again, and there was a demand in her eyes, angry but also... hopeful? No, not hopeful. Desperate. "But what if?"

"It doesn't matter," Lexa said, because it didn't. What ifs and if onlys meant nothing. There was only what one did, and living with the aftermath. Once a thing was done, it could not be undone. There was only forward, and looking back and wishing you could change the past would only drive you mad. 

Clarke tensed, and Lexa braced herself for an attack, but it didn't come. Not physically, but there was a fight in Clarke's voice, an accusation, a condemnation... and a young woman who wanted, needed more than what the world had given her, needed something to hold on to when it felt like all was lost. "It matters to _me_."

And this was the real test. This was the moment where she would pass or fail... and if she failed, it was over, and there was no coming back from it, no hope of anything ever changing. If she failed, it might very well mean that Clarke would go back to her people and tell them it was hopeless, that the Grounders, as they called her people, were heartless and there was no point in doing anything but going to war. A war they would almost certainly lose, but at what cost?

Except... was it really about her people? Did it have to be? Just once, couldn't something just be about her, about them? (There was no them, but was she being given a chance to make it so that there might be?) 

Was she allowed to be selfish, just for a moment? 

The words hung in the air, echoed in Lexa's ears, dropping like stones into a well and sending ripples through her that felt like waves crashing, and it was now or never, sink or swim, do or die. She had saved her people the first time. This time...

This time she would save herself.

"If I had chosen with my heart, Clarke... I never would have left you."

Clarke looked at her, and Lexa saw her throat bob as she swallowed. Her voice, when she spoke, was a rasp. (Was she trying not to cry? Because Lexa's eyes burned and her throat ached...) "Thank you."

_Don't thank me,_ Lexa thought, thought it so hard it was if she was trying to push it through the space between them and into Clarke's head, the words she wanted to say but couldn't. _Don't thank me. Kiss me._

"I still don't know... if I'm ready," Clarke whispered, like she had heard after all. "Especially not after... I can't just..." She stopped, started over. "I'm not sure I'll ever be ready."

"Sometimes," Lexa answered, "you have to do something, ready or not. But I will wait. Forever if it takes that long."

"Not forever," Clarke said. "Not that long." 

Lexa wasn't sure if the words were meant to be comforting. She didn't take much comfort in them, but it was something, at least, and if she was being honest, it was more than she had any right to expect. "It takes as long as it takes." 

Clarke said nothing, was still and silent until she reached across the space between them, then pulled her hand back and pulled her glove off, and held her hand out again, and Lexa didn't know if it was some kind of Sky People gesture or if it was just Clarke... just Clarke reaching out to her, specifically, for no reason than that she wanted to, needed to, maybe... She took her own glove off and put her hand over, into, Clarke's, and felt her fingers close, gripping tight.

"I won't leave again," Lexa said, and she meant it. Whatever happened, they would find a way to make things work. It was in their best interests, and the interests of their people, to reform the alliance, even if it would be twice as hard the second time around. " _Osir gonplei nou ste odon nowe._ "

Their fight was not over. It might never be over. But Lexa didn't, wouldn't give up. Because some things were worth fighting for. 

This girl was one of them. This chance, this hope for... what? Peace. Happiness. Maybe even love, when she thought that love was gone and that she was better off without it. Maybe even that. She looked at Clarke and smiled, squeezed her hand, and felt Clarke squeeze back. 

It wasn't much, maybe, except it was. It wasn't everything, and maybe it never would be. But for now, as the sun rose on a new day, a day that felt filled with promise (although neither of them would say that word, because theirs was not a world that allowed for anything so certain), it was enough.


End file.
